The Tweed Foundation 2016 Annual Report Contents Page The Tweed Foundation’s Annual Report 2016 Chairman’s Report 2 Director’s Foreward 3 Environment Tweed Water Temperatures in the Winter of 2015-16 4-5 Fish Populations Changes in Tweed Salmon 6-11 Stock by Stock Assessment 12-13 Monitoring Juvenile Salmon The Winter Floods of 2015-2016 14 2016 Electro-fishing Results 15-17 Scale Reading Confessions of a Scale Reader 18-19 Predation The Marks of the Beasts - Signs of Predators on Tweed Fish 20-22 Counting Ettrick Fish Counter Trial 23 Whiteadder Fish Counter 23 Gala Fish Counter 24 PhD Project Study using the Hydro Scheme at Philiphaugh, Ettrick Water 24-25 Brown Trout 2016 Brown Trout Catches 26 Brown Trout Scales & Genetic Sex ID 27 Brown Trout Spawning Burns 28 Brown Trout Spot Pattern Recognition 29-30 Trout Tracking 31 Other Species 2016 Grayling Catches 32 Consultancy 33 Our Services 33 Education Education Pack for Schools 34 Smolt Migration Conference “From Headwater to Headland” 35-36 Education Snapshot 2016 37-39 Websites 40 Accounts 41 Trustees & Staff 42 Acknowledgements 42 Join: Friends of The Tweed Foundation 43 Donations & Gift Aid 44 Map of the Tweed Catchment 45 Published June 2017 © The Tweed Foundation Front cover: Flooding in the Tweed Valley after Storm Desmond (Andrew Wilson/Alamy Stock Photo) www.tweedfoundation.org.uk 1 Chairman’s Report The Statement of Financial Activities in this Report shows the Foundation’s finances to be in a healthy position, with a modest surplus. This is a fortunate position to be in, but what is not shown is that the Trustees budgeted for a significant deficit for 2016. Core funding is not sufficient to fully cover annual expenditure and this surplus is only generated by taking on a significant amount of paid work relating to physical development within the catchment. This work is generally ad hoc and therefore difficult to budget for but it is the basis on which we have made ends meet for the last few years. It will not last forever and the Foundation staff are to be congratulated on putting in considerable extra effort to secure these valuable additional funds. The benefit to the Foundation is that, as yet, there has been no requirement to draw on the capital fund and the Foundation is in a good position to maintain current levels of activity despite a period of relative austerity. 2016 proved to be a good year for fieldwork with long periods of settled weather over the summer and the Foundation, as always, continues to deliver value for money and extracts every ounce of “benefit” from the research that it does; I think the contents of this Report provide ample demonstration of that. It also has to respond to events: devastating floods and, of course, the rapid decline in the Autumn rod catch for Salmon, which has such serious consequences for the financial well-being of the river. I am sure, in time, explanations will be found but meanwhile the work of the Foundation will continue to inform and maintain confidence in the future. Finally, 2016 was Nick Yonge’s last full year as Director. His contribution to the Foundation has been enormous: first, as one of the original Trustees in the mid eighties and then as Director to March 2017. He has given a huge amount of time and effort to the river and the Tweed has benefited from his knowledge of fish, his wealth of experience both inside and outside the catchment, but above all, a determination to do the right thing and not settle for second best. We wish him well for the future. Douglas Dobie 2 www.tweedfoundation.org.uk Director’s Foreword New challenges are thrown at The Tweed Foundation every year, and 2016 was no exception. It became clear that the winter floods at the beginning of the year had a dramatic effect on juvenile numbers over a wide area of the catchment. In common with many other rivers around the country, fry counts were well down relative to past surveys. Monitoring these events demonstrates the strength of our catchment-wide survey programme (940 sites, visited on a triennial basis, of which 295 were used to assess the flood damage) and how vital this system is in pinpointing any problems or ‘blips’ at a very early stage. Our hope now is that 2017 surveys will show a return to normality. Time will tell. I make no apology for mentioning the major Conference that we held in conjunction with the Atlantic Salmon Trust in Berwick-upon-Tweed this March, 2017. Whilst the Conference did not take place within the calendar year of our Report, the preparation for it started back in summer 2016 and so is relevant to this Report. The Conference, entitled “From Headwater to Headland - Improving smolt survival in rivers and estuaries” aimed to tackle all matters “smolt”. The two-day Conference attracted over 100 delegates - a good mix of scientists, fishery managers and anglers from all sections of the fisheries community - to listen to 20 speakers from Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, France and Denmark, as well as all corners of the British Isles. Papers presented included sections on the influences in freshwater on smolt production and survival, migration in rivers, survival in estuaries and coastal waters, and the impact of predation. To increase our audience for this vital subject, all of the presentations were filmed and are available on both the Foundation’s and the AST’s YouTube channels - see Page 35 for details. A written report will also be available mid-year; do visit our Tweed News site regularly for updates on this, and other breaking stories. As ever, the biology team has been hard-pressed this year to make our limited resources - in terms of both funds and, especially, staffing - stretch as far as possible. This Report presents a summary of that work, and more detail can be found on our dedicated website and also, increasingly, in an entertaining and digestible way on our Tweed Foundation YouTube channel. We are, as always, exceedingly grateful to all who show their support of the River by helping to fund the Tweed Foundation’s work; our scientific studies not only help further our knowledge of Tweed’s fish stocks in the longer term, but, as mentioned above, provide an early- warning system for any issues within our populations and, vitally, vigorously support and provide the solid objective data required for the implementation of new or revised management regimes on the River. Fay Hieatt The Kirkstead Burn which flows in to St Mary’s Loch. www.tweedfoundation.org.uk 3 Environment that most parts of Wales and central southern England recorded no Rationale: With forecasts of changes in rainfall, flow air frosts. Rainfall was 182% of the UK average, making it not only the patterns and temperatures, it is important to try and wettest December but also the wettest calendar month yet recorded forecast impacts on fish habitats, so that any step to for the UK. mitigate these changes can be identified. Electro-fishing surveys in Wales in 2016 found unprecedently low (FMP INPUTS 1A1; 1A2) numbers of Salmon fry in some rivers, the report from Natural Resources Wales stating ”fry numbers (young salmon hatched in the spring of 2016) [were] at critically low levels on the Usk, Tywi and Clwyd in most of the sites fished. These are rivers which previously produced consistent fry numbers. Tweed Water Temperatures In the Tywi catchment fisheries surveys this year found salmon to be absent in the Winter of 2015-16 from 31 of the 37 sites monitored and of the 13 survey sites on the Usk, eight had no salmon fry at all and the remaining five had very low numbers, while Winter 2015-16 was not only very wet, it was also very mild: The not only have no salmon fry been recorded on the Clwyd but the catchment Meteorological Office summary for November was “a generally is also seeing its worst trout fry numbers on record. Thankfully, surveys on mild month with an often humid south-westerly flow bringing cloudy the Tawe, Glaslyn and Wye are at normal levels.” One factor being looked conditions. It was dry and exceptionally warm during the first few days, at as a possible explanation for this drop in fry numbers is the very with record-breaking temperatures locally”, with a “notable absence of warm water temperatures in November and December 2015 in Wales. frost”. The mean UK temperature was 8.2°C, 2.0°C above the 1981-2010 long-term average, making it the third warmest November since 1910. Water temperature has very significant effects on the development of December, the summary says “ was an exceptional and record-breaking salmonid eggs: these take 100 days to hatch at 5°C but only 50 days at month. The UK was in a warm and moist tropical air mass for most of the 10°C, showing how unusually warm river conditions could disrupt the month, bringing unseasonably mild conditions to England and Wales, normal pattern of hatching and development. Trout eggs survive from although Scotland and Northern Ireland were colder at times”. The UK 0 to 13°C and Salmon from 0 to 16°C, though mortality and deformity mean temperature was 7.9 °C - 4.1°C above the 1981-2010 long-term rates greatly increase in Salmon eggs above 12°C (Environment Agency, average, making it the warmest December since 1910 for the UK. On 2008). The now superceded EU Freshwater Fish Directive required that the Central England temperature series, it was the warmest December thermal discharges should not raise water temperatures in salmonid ever – and that series started in 1659! Another remarkable feature was spawning areas above 10°C.